


Wayfinder

by SilverPurity



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ansem the Wise's machine is my excuse to have a Xemnas redemption story no one asked for, Confusion, First time writing Xemnas, Flashbacks, Gen, Gonna try and keep everyone in character but possible OOCness because I'm hopeless, Headcanon, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Summaries, Meddling Kids, Or at least Xemnas has what's left of it, Please Don't Hate Me, Possible Eraqus & Xemnas banter, Pretend Dream Drop Distance never happened, Recovered Memories, Restoring Terra, Search for Aqua and Ventus, Self-Indulgent Plot Bunny, Sora and Company on a wild goose chase after Xemnas, Spirit Guide Eraqus, Why Did I Write This?, World Hopping, Xemnas has Terra's Heart, Xemnas is just Terra with a Xehanort way of doing things, Xemnas just trying to figure out what's going on, identity crisis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 17:05:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16622930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverPurity/pseuds/SilverPurity
Summary: "Xemnas, do you wish to know your true name?"He scoffed at the scarred man. "I already know--""No, you don't. I speak not of the name you have already abandoned. I speak of the name you were given at birth. The name that had all its hopes and dreams crushed by the dark ambitions of a single man. The name that your friends still hold near and dear to their hearts.""My...friends?""Ah, that's right. You never mentioned your true intentions to anyone. You must be wondering how I know this. That's because your friends were my pupils, just as you once were. Darkness may have split your heart apart and changed your appearance, but you--the body--still remain entirely his. You're all that's left of him...and you're the only one who can set things right.""Who...are you?""Look inside your wounded heart...and try to remember, Terra."





	Wayfinder

_I’m with you!_

Three words uttered to him while lost in the haze of unconsciousness. A vow declared by someone that was forever bound to him, no matter the distance. At least, that’s what he assumed. That vague promise was the only thing Xehanort remembered before he was found by his future mentor and colleagues. All he had were the clothes on his back, a star-shaped pendant, his “friend”, and a name he wasn’t certain was even his. It was a perplexing conundrum that Xemnas never quite figured out, even ten years later. For so long, Xehanort strived to unlock the secrets of his past; to find any bit of information that would lead him to discovering his true self.

Braig seemed to know him, but the sharpshooter’s words had always been something of an enigma to him. Addressing him familiarly as if they had once been cohorts, teasing him with the title of “Master”, asking him if “Terra" was there or not. Braig was convinced that he needed to remain “bad and ‘Norty”—whatever that meant—even going as far as trying to dispose of the items that Xehanort held so close.

But who was Terra and what connection did Xehanort share with that person? Why address him as “Master”? These questions and more popped into his mind, encouraging him to take some initiative to recover his lost memories by his own means since Braig didn’t seem too keen on revealing any information about who Terra was. He kept the outfit and shoulder armor in a safe place so that Braig would not find them, he wore the pendant at all times, and he often spoke to his “friend” hoping that something—phantom whispers of friends or family, a flashback, _anything_ —would come back to him. But those memories continued to elude him and he became desperate.

Was it any wonder that he delved into his mentor’s research in the hopes that it would cure his amnesia? But in doing so, he found something worth far more than some trite memories. Ansem the Wise had been a weak-hearted fool, but it was that foolishness that allowed Xehanort to progress as far as he had. He had been the one willing to make the needed sacrifices in the name of research. He had been the one to pursue that which remained beyond the reach of mortal men. Because he was willing, he had transcended and became one with the darkness.

Though that union resulted in the split between his heart and body. Much like how he first started his life as Xehanort, Xemnas had to pick up the leftover pieces and stitch them back together into some jumbled identity with a stolen name that promised greatness and recognition. Xehanort had wanted nothing more than to make his mark on reality so that all would remember who he was and what he had achieved. In order to do that, he had to abandon his previous identity as that lost and confused boy with nothing but a questionable name to define him.

But Xemnas remembered nothing. What little he could grasp on his own was the faintest glimmer of forgotten emotions that had been buried deep inside him. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind, that haunting promise continued to ring loud and clear. He never recalled the voice or the person who said those words to him in the first place, but they stubbornly clung to what was left of his being when Xehanort cast himself into the darkness and opened the door to that world. That promise was all he had to fill the endless void that was left behind. That person was missing and, somehow, he knew that there was another he needed to find. For what purpose, he did not know. What he did know was that when he tried to think about how he could’ve lost whoever those people were, there was a sense of anger and hatred burning so fiercely inside his soul that he could almost feel it even as a Nobody. Rage directed towards himself and another. Underneath that, a sense of despair and longing. Such feelings were lost on a Nobody like him, so—as curious as a newborn babe—he set off to learn who he was in order to determine why those feelings persisted and what they meant to him.

It was during those travels when he found his heart again—or to be more precise, the Heartless it had formed. It called itself Ansem, Seeker of Darkness. It was darkness that possessed no form and the brown cloak it wore only created the illusion that it was a corporeal being. It had been the one that gave him the name “Xemnas” in the first place and it told him where to find the answers Xemnas had been searching for. The Seeker of Darkness made itself precisely clear that it had no intention of returning back to Xemnas to recreate Xehanort. Because Xehanort gave into the darkness willingly, Ansem had kept all of Xehanort’s memories. It made sense at the time why Xemnas had come into the world with nothing but the faint echo of an oath to cling to, so he had naively accepted Ansem’s explanation without a second thought. With newfound resolve, he obeyed the Seeker of Darkness and traveled to the ravaged world of Radiant Garden where he remained blissfully unaware of the Seeker’s true intentions.

Xemnas found Xehanort’s journal entries and old research findings about the heart in the depths of the ruined castle that had once been his home. By gaining that new knowledge, he finally had something to base himself off of. But even with the revelation of who his Somebody was, it had been a meager attempt to fill in the void inside him. As a Nobody, he had nothing to live for. Xemnas was nothing itself. Teetering on the edge of light and darkness, he was shunned and scorned by both realms. As a creature doomed to return to the darkness from whence it came, Xemnas struggled to find reasons to continue surviving as a Nobody.

But in an empty world he discovered while wandering the realms between, he finally found a purpose in his nonexistence. He saw the grotesque shapes of lesser Nobodies and realized that, even among nothings, he was something special. He felt a sense of supremacy over them and, with it, a desire to rise above the nothing he became. A wish to make the worlds into his own image so that he could correct the fallacy all worlds believed in—that light was the ultimate good, darkness the ultimate evil, and nothing would always be nothing. A vow to find the ones he had lost. As a result, he embraced the nothingness and the strength it had gifted him. With the knowledge he had at hand, Xemnas could make his—and Xehanort’s—dreams a reality. In order for such an ambitious plan to be completed, he needed power; power that only the heart could provide, for the heart was the source of all power. In order to have absolute strength, he sought to complete his being once again and obtain ultimate supremacy by merging with Kingdom Hearts—the heart of all worlds. All else did not matter to him.

However, because of Xehanort’s ambitions, the Heartless roamed free and began multiplying exponentially as they spread to other worlds. Eventually, the Heartless infested Radiant Garden and a brainless sorceress from another world took control of the once beautiful haven. Maleficent kept a close eye on her new domain, which she dubbed Hollow Bastion, forcing Xemnas to leave his “friend” and other “cherished” belongings behind. However, for the sake of his agenda, he could not afford to be nostalgic. Xemnas abandoned those items—his very past—and set his sights on a grand future.

For nine long years, he had worked from the shadows of the world that had given him purpose. Allying with the Nobodies of his former colleagues, gathering resources, researching the best way to summon Kingdom Hearts, and exploring the worlds to determine which individuals would create the strongest Nobodies. Everything was by his designs, but he had no means of summoning Kingdom Hearts. Without Kingdom Hearts, all his work would have been for naught.

Then _he_ appeared, wielding a key that released the captive hearts from the Emblem Heartless. It was then that Xemnas knew that he had found the solution to his dilemma. He would gather the released hearts and the merging of all those hearts into one entity would bring forth Kingdom Hearts itself. In order to amass that many hearts, he needed Sora to work for him since the Keyblade chose its own master and only allowed a special few to wield it.

His chance arrived when the pure-hearted child gave up his heart to save the last Princess of Heart. With the creation of Sora’s Heartless, even though Princess Kairi had brought the boy back from the clutches of darkness, a Nobody had been created as well. So Xemnas set off, searching for that empty husk to use for his own purposes. He found it in Twilight Town. Golden locks that stuck up at an angle as if the wind itself had sculpted them. Eyes as blue as the ocean’s waves. A young boy that looked like he had no place on the battlefield. Something stirred uncomfortably inside Xemnas at the sight and a single word left his mouth.

“Ven?”

The Nobody did not respond to the word—or perhaps it was a name—and remained still. Eyes that should have been sparkling with life were dull and unfocused. His chest ached at the sight, though Xemnas was uncertain as to why his body reacted in such a way. He had no heart to feel with and he had no connection to Sora, much less the boy’s newly created Nobody. Whatever recognition there could have been was not there and the odd sensation went away as quickly as it came. Xemnas brushed off the encounter, deeming it the result of long-buried emotions of his forgotten past life. Such thoughts were inconsequential in the long run. Xemnas gave the boy a name, a coat, and the final position in the organization he had formed.

But meeting Roxas had awakened _something_ within him. Places he remembered visiting and passed by without a second glance suddenly had a distinct familiarity to him. Castle Oblivion in particular gave him the worst case of déjà vu. Faint threads of forgotten feelings told him that there was something important inside Castle Oblivion, located in a hidden room. A chamber that contained…power? Treasure? Something infinitely more valuable than Kingdom Hearts itself? He knew not what it contained, but he knew he needed to find it if it could prove useful to his ultimate goal. Then there was Roxas himself that posed a problem. When the child fell into a coma due to Naminé’s manipulations of Sora’s memories, no matter how much he convinced himself otherwise, Xemnas knew that a similar situation had happened before and it caused his chest to ache in a fashion similar to what one would call the feeling of guilt. Perhaps the “Ven” person he first addressed Roxas as by mistake was the reason for the phenomena? But who was Ven and why did it matter to him?

_It is of no importance_ , he told himself. There was no point in dwelling on such a mundane topic. The past was in the past and nothing would ever change it. What did matter was paving his way towards an ideal future.

With Roxas as the final pawn, his plan was set into motion. The year that passed by had been slow and grueling, but Roxas had played his part perfectly. Xemnas may not have found the secret chamber hidden behind Castle Oblivion’s walls, but with Number XIII’s help, Organization XIII had amassed a significant amount of hearts. Kingdom Hearts was nearing completion. However, Roxas—much like Xemnas himself—had entered the world with no memories of his past life and was left to put to the pieces together himself. In the end, he had gotten too curious and learned too much. The boy had run off to find the answers he so desired only to disappear as a result of his journey. With Roxas having merged back together with his Somebody, Sora awoke from a long slumber and set out to search for his missing friend Riku.

Everything was still going according to plan. Sora, in all his self-righteousness, could never ignore the Heartless and the pain they inflicted upon the denizens of light. He remained none the wiser of the Organization’s plan as he slayed Heartless after Heartless, searching the worlds for any sign of the Organization, the King, or Riku. As the pale of light of Kingdom Hearts grew over the World That Never Was, Xemnas felt that it was time the Keybearer knew the truth.

Oh, how Xemnas delighted in watching Sora squirm helplessly with the knowledge that every fight brought the Nobodies closer to their goal. Even though he could not truly enjoy the sight, Xemnas reveled in the fact that he _knew_ Sora was suffering. Weakness. Anger. Hatred. Envy. All were feelings Xemnas was familiar with and the way they tormented the heart. Sora would experience them all and it would lead to his downfall.

“It won’t be long now, friend,” he spoke to the rusting blue armor lying at his feet in the Chamber of Repose. “Kingdom Hearts is almost ready. All of its vast power and knowledge will be at my fingertips…and you will no longer remain a mere memory. Very soon…I will set this right.”

That was a promise he intended to keep, but the Keybearer had to intervene. Sora had the galls to invade his sanctuary, his World That Never Was, and take down everything he had been carefully building up over the years. The Organization members that remained were wiped out and Sora was coming for him next. For revenge, for all the misery he brought to the worlds, for all the torment he put Sora through, for all the hearts Sora had unknowingly collected, for the simple fact that Xemnas was a Nobody and therefore could not be allowed to continue existing; whatever the reason, Sora intended to hunt him down and eliminate the sole survivor of Organization XIII. But Xemnas would not allow it to happen. He needed to finish what he had started.

The moment he saw the beam of light shooting at his Kingdom Hearts, Xemnas felt the stirring of those old feelings of anger and hatred as they rose to the surface once more. Oddly enough, they were not directed towards Ansem the Wise—even though the pathetic wretch dared to ruin his plan for becoming whole and achieving ultimate power. No. The rage stemmed from the notion that Kingdom Hearts was the only resource at his disposal that could locate those lost souls he so desperately wanted to find. Without Kingdom Hearts, they would remain lost to him, remaining mere memory fragments that threatened to disappear at a moment’s notice.

Ansem called him ignorant and a fool. Xemnas did not care. He had lost the ability to care long ago. But he promised his friend he would set things right. He would not stand for Ansem’s meddling, much less Sora’s sanctimonious attitude towards him.

He could have let the malfunctioning machine end Ansem and Kingdom Hearts, but that meant he would need to wait for another Keyblade wielder to collect hearts now that Sora and the rest knew of his agenda. He had already waited ten years for his moment to arrive. He would not wait again; not when he was so close to achieving his goal. Instead of fleeing, he stayed, intending to end his former mentor’s life before moving on to the rest. Before he could act out on that desire, a bright light came from the self-destructing digital encoder. Sora’s group cried out in shock and despair as the explosion engulfed Ansem the Wise, steadily growing larger in size and brightness. The radiance blinded him and Xemnas felt the light pierce deep into his core. Out of pure instinct, he summoned a Dark Corridor and escaped to the Altar of Naught.

Unbeknownst to him, his exposure to the machine would awaken a broken heart that had been sleeping for years.


End file.
